1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capture lens and image capture apparatus, and more particularly to an image capture lens which is suitable for use in a small-sized image capture apparatus using a solid-state image capture device such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or a CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor), as well as to an image capture apparatus using such an image capture lens.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile telephones with cameras and digital still cameras using solid-state image capture devices such as CCDs or CMOSs have heretofore been known. In the field of such an image capture apparatus, demand is rising for far more miniaturization as well as for a built-in image-taking lens having a small size and a short total length.
In recent years, small-sized image capture equipment such as mobile telephones with cameras have been miniaturized more and more and the pixel resolution of image capture devices have become higher and higher, so that models equipped with image capture devices having pixel resolutions not lower than a megapixel resolution have been spread as popular models. Accordingly, it has been demanded that image capture lenses to be incorporated into such image capture equipment and devices have high lens performance capable of solid-state image capture equipment of high-resolution pixels.
An image capture lens made of three lens elements is generally used as such a small-sized and high-performance image capture lens, and known examples are image capture lenses described in Patent Literature 1 (Japanese Patent Application Publication Number 2004-4566) and Patent Literature 2 (Japanese Patent Application Publication Number 2004-219807).